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(All images by Mikey Ashworth. Copyrighted by London Underground and reproduced with permission.)

Like all subway systems and tunnels engineered by humans, the London Undergound has plenty of now-abandoned stations and spurs and passages.

Unlike most, there is a very special, and very abandoned, very non-public now-unused part of the Notting Hill Gate station that houses some lovely examples of UK poster design from it’s Mid-Century high point.

(All images by Mikey Ashworth. Copyrighted by London Underground and reproduced with permission.)

Above, good time UK Party Travel by coach poster, as imagined by poster artist Victor Galbraith, 1958.

The elevator passageway is well abandonned, but its original posters from the day the station was closed still hung on its tiled walls advertising all sorts of bright bits of the world of travel, exhibitions, film, toothpaste and more to no one these days.

(All images by Mikey Ashworth. Copyrighted by London Underground and reproduced with permission.)

These beauties are a stunning collection of illustration, type design and ad layouts from the late 1950’s, still in their native habitat. Which makes them extra special.

(All images by Mikey Ashworth. Copyrighted by London Underground and reproduced with permission.)

Most unfortunately, for a poster and design nerd like myself, these amazing, vibrant and powerful examples of advertising poster design are completely inaccessible to the public and are likely to stay so for the forseeable future. Once the renovations to this station were completed in 2010, this abandoned passageway was walled back up and sealed off from use again.

Still, many thanks to Mikey Ashworth and the London Underground for publishing these photographs of a poster age (sadly) gone by.